And Next Comes Instinct
by Warlordess
Summary: Direct sequel to 'Not According to Plan', in which Ash is left alone to mull over his guilt towards Misty's injury… and the previous awkwardly inappropriate contact with her bosom that she forced him to take part in. Pokeshipping one-shot. Rated for sexual/teen awkwardness. Never gets old, folks!


**Disclaimer** \- I don't own anything, of course. Just a klepto highjacking my fave characters for the sake of shipping.

 **Author** \- Warlordess

 **Notes** \- Well, here it is… my semi-planned (mostly unplanned) sequel to **Not According to Plan** , a Pokeshipping one-shot requested by an anon on Tumblr in which Ash accidentally gropes Misty's boobs. I had felt there were a couple of unresolved issues after writing that fic that I would love to further explore but it was put on the backburner while I sorted through my writer's block and other projects. Since then, this fic has snowballed and developed thanks to some input by online friends hopeful for a specific resolution.

Also, there's quite the twist at the end so please enjoy. All likes/reblogs/reviews/shares/favorites/etc are appreciated, as always!

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 **Title** \- "And Next Comes Instinct"

 **Summary** \- Direct sequel to 'Not According to Plan', in which Ash is left alone to mull over his guilt towards Misty's injury… and the previous awkwardly inappropriate contact with her bosom that she forced him to take part in. Pokeshipping one-shot.

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Ash wasn't much used to clinics or hospitals.

Generally the only reason he visited such a place at all was to have Pikachu and the rest of his Pokemon looked at and cared for… but even he wasn't sure Nurse Joy had the facilities to properly tend to a human head wound.

"Well, we've run the CT on your friend, Misty," a woman in a white lab coat told him after entering the room with a particular file in hand, taking a seat and introducing herself as Dr. Sivaraman, "I have to say, it's really impressive that she _didn't_ suffer more damage to her occipitale region of the skull."

Ash was not too familiar with the medical terms being thrown almost _casually_ it seemed in his face… but his heart lunged around between the pit of his stomach and somewhere in the back of his throat, then back to his stomach, his throat, his chest (where he adamantly demanded it should remain so he could _focus_ , for goodness sake), then of course - after defying him - it scraped and crawled its way back up to his throat once more.

He had known - told himself in the moment - that head injuries - _Misty's_ injury - were severe, dangerous, life-threatening even, as much as he'd wanted to ignore or deny it. He had told himself that it was his fault, his responsibility… He was the reason she'd come so close to true and serious harm.

And no matter how many times he reminded himself that now was not the proper time to become so consumed in guilt, no matter how many times he remembered that _Misty_ had not blamed him for what happened back at the Seafoam Island cavern (at least, not exclusively)… Well, now he was facing the potential consequences of what could have been and she wasn't available to center him. No, all he had was his own overwhelming distress and concern.

"Despite the CT results, we always want to take a head injury like this seriously, especially up to the following twenty-four hours. That being said," Dr. Sivaraman paused long enough to clear her throat, causing Ash to snap back to the present, "we would like to keep her overnight for observation."

"Uuh, a - are you asking me?" he wondered aloud, genuinely curious. "I'm not in charge of her medical decisions, right?" All the while he couldn't help thinking if the doctor was maybe somehow aware of just how far his thought process had strayed a minute or two ago.

"Oh, no, Mr. Ketchum," the woman went on patiently, "I've already spoken to Misty about her results and our plans and she agreed it was for the best. We've also given her some painkillers and muscle relaxants for any aches she may experience while here. If you'd like, I can take you to her room, though I must warn you the medication drip will have made her drowsy so it's possible that she'll have fallen asleep by now."

"That's fine!" he replied, leaping up from the waiting room chair, flinching through the slight pain of his own fall back in the cavern, realizing too late that he'd probably come off sounding a little over-eager. "Uh, I mean, if you could, that would be… great, thanks."

If Ash had thought that seeing Misty himself would comfort him in some way, he was going to be sorely mistaken a few minutes later.

She was, as he'd been told might be the case, currently sleeping rather soundly in the bed before him, covered from neck to toe in a death white sheet. He shook himself from that reverie only to be taken in by the pulse OX clip on her finger, her vitals being actively monitored by the computer system on her other side. There were several wires too, some traveled underneath the top of her hospital gown to keep track of her heartbeat, a couple of others that were connected to a separate screen from the vitals were attached presumably to her forehead underneath a gratuitous stretch of gauzy cloth wound around her head so heavily that he could barely make out the familiar firey red of her hair.

"What…" he paused, finding words hard for him to string together. It was just… impossibly difficult to watch his good friend like this, but also quite impossible to look away, "… What are those on her head for? I thought you said that the CT scan thing cleared her from… uh… head injuries; like, _serious_ head injuries."

"Oh, yes, but as I said, we're keeping her overnight for observation, and the best way to continue to watch over the healing progress of something like this would be to keep an eye on it with the use of neurological tracking. Don't worry, Mr. Ketchum, the chances of Miss Waterflower's health deteriorating are slight and they decrease by the hour."

He may not have been the smartest Rocket in the trio but that sounded to him like his good friend wasn't as well off as he'd first been told.

"Yeah, uh, thanks," he told the good doctor flatly, not seeming all that grateful at all, but that was mostly because his previous guilt and fear was now returning.

"Well, I'll leave you two together for now. Since Miss Waterflower doesn't have any immediate family near Cinnabar, the treatment staff has discussed it and decided you would be allowed to stay passed visitor hours, at least until she wakes up. Other than that, a nurse will be in to check on her vitals every hour or so." Dr. Sivaraman told him informatively before wrapping it up with the following, "If you get hungry or need to make a phone-call, just approach anyone at the station desk out in the hall for assistance."

"Yeah, thanks," he told her again, this time a bit more enthusiastically.

The next thing he knew, it was just him and his guilty conscious… and Misty, of course, but since she was more the physical manifestation of his guilty conscious, he was doing his best to ignore her - no, wait, not _ignore_ ; that only made him feel guiltier…

Still, what was he supposed to do? Just sit and stare at her until he quite literally couldn't stand it anymore? Then run away and distract himself by calling Professor Oak, who hadn't been notified of their discovery yet due to their emergency pitstop at Cinnabar's medical clinic?

He sat vigilantly before her, the whole time on the edge of his seat, for all of five minutes before deciding that he rather liked the idea of that escape after all, so he sighed and rose to his feet, took one last look at the redheaded girl sleeping soundly in front of him, and then followed Dr. Sivaraman's directions to the nurse's station outside…

It had taken them almost another ten minutes after 'the incident' to make it back through the first room of the cavern and out to the open pathway and the makeshift pier that local boaters had crafted in order to access the islands for themselves.

He could hardly remember how things went after that. The ferryman that had accompanied them met them on the dock and escorted a half-conscious Misty to a seat, offering her a bottled water and a rag to apply more pressure to the back of her head.

Ash was a jumble of things at that point. Grateful, concerned, but doing his best to put on a brave face anyway because the situation was still serious and he didn't know _how_ serious and he just wanted to know for sure that they were both in the clear after what had happened so he really wished that their ride would just hurry up and get them back to Cinnabar so they could get the medical attention they needed before things escalated any further–

"– _Just checking," Misty had said with an almost gleefully wicked smile._

"Mwah!" Ash shouted at the sudden vision of her in his mind's eye, _snapping to release his hand from her grasp, her breast cupped perfectly underneath his palm_. "Mwaah!" he wailed a second time, nearly dropping the phone receiver he'd been given to make his call.

No, no, no! He wasn't supposed to… How was he - how _could_ he….?

Doing his utmost best to calm down, he breathed in deeply and focused hard on the number keys as he dialed Professor Oak to inform him of their discovery.

"That's wonderful news, Ash, thank you for letting me know! I'll start contacting Indigo League about assigning a trained evaluation and excavation team. I hope this wasn't any trouble for you both…" Then the elderly man paused while shuffling some paperwork on his desk as a curious expression formed on his face, "… Speaking of you _both_ , where's Misty?"

"Ah, that's… she's…" And, although he did his best to hide his shame, he simply wasn't capable.

"Ash, are you alright? Oh," the professor faltered again as he craned his neck, apparently taking in the sight of the raven-haired trainer's environment, "did the Cinnabar Island PokeCenter go through some renovations? Nurse Joy must be thrilled!"

"A - actually I - we're not…" Ash hushed, trying and failing to form a proper guilt-free statement. He knew Professor Oak didn't mean to sound like he was interrogating him, but, considering how he'd already been feeling before the conversation started…

"We're not at the PokeCenter; we're at the medical center."

"Do you mean the hospital? Ash, what _happened_? Was the Center fully booked so you had to take your Pokemon there instead?"

To be fair, that _had_ happened before so it wasn't such a farfetched possibility.

"Or did something happen to you two?" the professor asked next, noting the few bandages wound around the boy's arms and one band aid that had been applied to the cut on his cheek. "Are the Pokemon exceptionally violent right now, maybe from Articuno trespassing on their home? I'd need to know about that just in case. We wouldn't want to send any other trainers or league officials into such a dangerous situation."

"No, it wasn't the Pokemon; we actually didn't see any Pokemon. Misty and I just figured Articuno's presence made them retreat further into the cave."

"Alright then, Ash… Why don't you tell me what happened now? What caused those injuries? And where is Misty at?" Professor Oak asked comfortingly, eyes softening and posture slouching a considerable amount.

So Ash explained what he'd originally dubbed that incident-which-shall-never-be-discussed. He glossed over some of the details - the part about his instigation and insurmountable guilt - but otherwise divulged everything he could remember now that the adrenaline had started to wear off.

"Well, I'm glad that the both of you are alright. Thank you for getting in touch with me regarding what happened. I'll notify the transit administration about your delay so you'll be eligible to board tomorrow evening. Have you contacted your mother or Misty's family yet?"

"Uh, no. I only just finished hearing from the doctor a little while ago and Misty's been in bed asleep the whole time so…"

"Alright, how about I give them all a call for you and you go get some shut eye yourself? You must be pretty tired too after such an eventful day."

"Y - yeah, I guess…" Ash replied, noting internally that he was pretty sure he wouldn't be getting much sleep anyway. "Thanks, professor."

"Anytime, Ash. You get some rest, and if anything changes, just call to let me know, alright?"

"Yeah, thanks again."

As the conversation came to a close and they both placed the phone receivers back on the hook, the raven-haired trainer couldn't help but concernedly reflect on a particular part of Professor Oak's closing comment.

' _… If anything changes, just to let me know…'_

' _… If anything changes…'_

But _what_ could change? Things seemed bad enough as they were. He couldn't even fathom the possibility of them getting worse.

The worry was only exacerbated when he heard the abrupt sound overhead of a code being called, followed by the resounding bustle of a congregation of hurried footsteps as some of the nursing staff began running down the hall.

Not daring to risk anything further, Ash shuffled back to Misty's room in stern, focused silence, trying to find any particular subject to think about.

First he tried to settle on how weird it was not to be hungry for once but that lasted all of five seconds before he took in Misty's still form, a background full of beeping machines and wires and subdued, stifling disquiet otherwise.

Then he thought about Pikachu recuperating back at Professor Oak's lab, how he wondered if his buddy was on the elderly researcher's list of loved ones to notify about their delay, how maybe comforting it would have been to see such a sight for sore eyes and how pleasantly distracting it would have been for him to check up on the electric mouse.

But again, such thoughts were short-lived. The professor would have been sure to update him if there was anything alarming worth bringing to his attention, so he felt his consciousness rewrap around the present.

Rewrap around Misty asleep - thankfully _only_ asleep - in the bed before him, rewrap around his tangled guilt, guilt that the redhead had already done her part in absolving him of before they'd left the Seafoam Island cavern, before she'd lost consciousness, before he'd gotten them to–

" _–Just checking," she'd practically giggled, perhaps delirious at this point from blood-loss, from pain, as she loosened the grip she'd retained on his hand, a hand she'd placed unceremoniously on her bosom to apparently make some sort of point–_

"–Mwah!" the traumatized Pokemon trainer yelped for the third time that day, all for the same reason too, practically jumping straight from his seat against the wall.

Well, if there was something capable of distracting him, this would undoubtedly be it.

" _Just checking,"_ she had said, as if grabbing his hand and placing it on her chest were normal.

" _Just checking,"_ she had told him nonchalantly, a coy grin on her face as his own ignited in strangled panic.

" _Just checking,"_ she'd laughed, her inappropriately odd experiment seemingly conventional - _seemingly_ nothing - after he'd confessed his knowledge about his accidental transgression against her almost a half-an-hour previous.

Checking… checking _what_ , he had to wonder? Checking that his mortification had been the real thing? Checking that she could exert some strange form of control or blackmail over him? Unlikely, sure, but not impossible, especially when she'd been so frustrated with him earlier in the day due to their lack of communication during their extended absence and distance from each other's lives.

But, then again, Misty had been… expectant? … No, she'd been downright gleeful while watching him squirm after forcing him to grab a hold of her chest.

Huh… Even more of a reason to believe she was looking for proper blackmail material. Or else…

He shook his head rapidly, trying to rid it of the sinful memory of that soft, cushiony slope of feminine flesh held firmly - and repeatedly - under his inexperienced palm.

He felt his face flush, all abuzz from the embarrassment and - dare he think it? - _arousal_ at the contact, though it was also a pleasurable strain on his consciousness that he was entirely unfamiliar with until now.

Well, maybe not… _entirely_.

But his face wasn't the only part of him that glowed a blotchy red and tingled with a familiar yet uncomfortable sensation.

His hand, the same one his redheaded friend had victimized earlier that same day, the very same that had twice made contact with an intimate part of her person, felt like it had been magically set aflame - as he retraced his memories of what happened while they were traversing the Seafoam Islands.

Unfortunately, focusing on that also led to those memories working their way in reverse, like a video rewinding at an accelerated speed. Suddenly he was staring at a lethargic Misty, his own voice reiterating how important it was that they made their way to the cave entrance. Then she was staggering, crumbling to the ground, her slurred voice trying its best to coax him into letting her rest a bit. Then they were sitting together, staring up at the cavern ceiling where a crystallized marvel glimmered and glowed softly, enamoring them with its splendor.

But he'd forgotten an important scene, and as if in response, the memories paused and began to play brokenly forward, the frames clicking one by one as they sped by.

He was noting his own minor injuries. They were sitting down together. They were staring up at the roof of the third cavern room in awe. He was bracing himself to get up so they could get out of there and tell Professor Oak of their discovery. He was staring at his hand in the almost-black darkness. He was seeing red, red, _red_. He was floundering as he tried to alert her to her apparent trauma. He was still seeing red. He was being overcome with a profound sense of dread and fear. He couldn't take his eyes off the red. The red on his gloves, the red staining his fingers, the red smudged along the icy ground below him from when he'd been trying to pick himself up before, the red soaked into the back of her jacket, the red mangling her skull and matting her hair.

And, suddenly, jarringly, he was off the red - thank goodness - and on the all-consuming guilt - oh, please, no.

This was his fault. Why'd he bring her here? This was his fault. Why was she the one hurt? This was his fault. Just how bad could a head wound get anyway? This was his fault.

 _This_ was his fault.

This _was_ his fault.

This was _his_ fault.

This was his _fault_.

Why couldn't it have been him?

Ash snapped awake from his half-sleeping state, taking in the low lighting and the rhythmic beep-beep of the monitors and the soft inhaling and exhaling breath of the redhead soundly recuperating beside him.

He was firmly aware that he could only take so much blame for what had happened earlier. It certainly lacked sense to heave so much of a burden solely onto his own shoulders. Ash Ketchum knew Misty would never expect it of him, she'd never blame him herself but… There was an odd willingness welling up within him to take responsibility for everything, and not - not _just_ \- the guilty kind, but the… the protective kind.

His heart thudded madly in his throat before he swallowed it back down, his hand tingling uncomfortably again, so much so that he couldn't help staring at it.

" _Just checking!"_ she had told him excitedly.

He jumped again, only just this time, and flexed his hand into a fist, then stretched his fingers open, then tightened them once more, then back open–

–Why'd she _do_ that anyway? And why had it affected him so much?

He paused after the questions posed had made their way through his mind. Was it really worth dwelling on them?

Alas, without his own knowledge or consent, he was on his feet, standing over her still form and staring down. He felt that uncomfortable tingling shoot through him again, this time throughout his whole body, and that same treacherous hand that had betrayed him once already (and then been used against him too) was less than a foot away from her, less than half, less and less and…

And then he was touching her.

It was completely innocent. He was only poking her softly in the arm. It was nothing compared to what she did to him earlier that day. But it was still enough to send his brain into a tailspin, his heart into a frenzy, his nerves into an electric storm.

The realization slammed into him like a cable car crashing to a halt. This was… _she_ was…

" _Just checking!"_ she'd coyly stated, avoiding giving him any sort of valid explanation for her actions. She was smiling, she was happy, she was looking forward to his strangled, panicked response.

She… she'd wanted him to react to touching her.

Well, despite her state of unconsciousness, she'd probably be happy to know that her strange little plan had worked. He couldn't _keep_ himself from reacting to her now. It was almost like an allergic response, except for… except for the fact that it didn't seem so entirely unpleasant.

No, it was more just hyper-sensitivity… to touching her, to thinking of her, to being in her presence, to… to _her_.

This was unprecedented. This was entirely new. This was…

Slowly, painstakingly, he pulled his hand away from her and regained his seat a few feet away, reviewing what he'd learned over the past thirty minutes.

Misty had forced him to grope her to ensure he reacted to doing so. What's more, she'd been happy about the response she'd been given. And now, now it felt downright addictive because… because he wanted - liked - touching her.

But _why_? He couldn't contain the urge to push for more specific answers.

Why did his hand tingle at the mere memory of touching her in any intimate way or place? Why did his heart leap into his throat, down into the pit of his stomach? Why didn't he mind the contact? Why did he crave it? Why only her?

… Only her?

Only her.

Holy crap, he _liked_ her.

Ash Ketchum liked Misty Waterflower.

Ooh, no.

He snapped awake in his seat once more, his unbidden state of semi-consciousness eaten away into nothing as the realization dawned on him - the second realization in one evening no less, which made him feel pretty darned accomplished to be honest.

Well, equal parts accomplished and mortified.

It wasn't until that last stray thought ambled through his head that Ash regained full cognizance and noticed a familiar pair of teal green eyes staring at him.

"Mwah!" he shouted, leaping to his feet in an instant, "How long…? Why… Jeez, Myst, what are you doing, staring at me like that?"

Despite not having the energy to raise her head upright, the redheaded gym trainer was still somehow capable of glaring smoothly at him from her sideways position in bed.

"Whatever, Mr. Pokemon Master. I _tried_ calling out to you a few times and you didn't answer, even after you woke up a couple of minutes ago," she told him indignantly, leaving him feeling even more embarrassed. But that renewed and intensified feeling only crippled worse at her next inquiry.

"Something on your mind?"

"Why," he paused long enough to clear his throat and lower the unnaturally high pitch in his voice, "No! Why would you think that? J - just 'cause I was ignoring you? Which I wasn't; I just fell asleep. I mean, c'mon Misty, you know how that's just… that's just us. Me ignoring you but not really 'cause I just fall asleep sometimes."

And he finished up his awkward statement of denial with a hopefully flippant laugh.

"Well, you had to be thinking about _something_ …" she faltered as she readjusted her weight so she could look at him better, flinching and biting back the urge to vomit after her head starting spinning.

He didn't respond to her in any way and even, to a point, resumed the vacant staring he'd been so preoccupied with recently. She gazed evenly back at him from the bed, doing her best not to let the agitation at being ignored eat at her. And then she thought about him, about the kind of person he was, even about what had happened before they'd left the Seafoam Island cave oh-so many hours ago and found their way back to the ferry.

"You're not feeling guilty still, are you?" she asked next, and blinked once, twice, rapidly as he regained present attention at her question, "Because I told you earlier, it's at least not _just_ your fault. I wandered ahead without thinking. Besides, it was an accident."

"Yeah, but…" He didn't quite have it in him to confess that no accident he'd ever been party to had ever had such grievous consequences, "… It's not really the guilt that's the problem."

"Oh, really?" She quirked a brow and urged him silently to continue.

"Nah, I mean, not just… not anymore. It's - I was thinking… thinking about…"

He paused, pursed his lips, tried to find a way around the humiliation, the confusion, even the comprehension of why he'd been affected so much by her.

"You… you had… you made me grope you," he noted firmly, observing her for any sort of reaction.

"I…" Her eyes glazed over a second but she blinked whatever caused that away and pressed onward. "I did… but I don't really remember that."

He couldn't tell if she was lying, couldn't explain why such an excuse seemed to disappoint him… but it did. He wasn't sure if the appearance of this free 'out' was for her benefit or his but, now that he'd come this far, he was quite sure that he had no intention of taking her up on it.

"You may not remember it much but I gotta ask, why _would_ you do that, d'ya think?"

"Don't know…" she murmured but he could see even in the low light that she suddenly had trouble looking directly at him and that her cheeks were a flushed pink color.

"It was weird," he told her without her even asking the question, "I - I mean, 'cause I've never really… but it was also weird because I… after I thought about it, I realized I kind of… didn't mind it."

The last thing she'd expected was for him to admit that he'd liked what had happened, but that's exactly what he'd done, even in not so many words. The fact that he didn't drop the subject made her more comfortable in further pursuing it but, if she was being honest, there was only one logical question, one route, to take.

"So… did you not mind it because of _it_ ," Well, hey, he _was_ a teenage boy after all, "or because of… me?"

Moment of truth. What could he say to her when she'd taken such a steep and sharp plunge?

Part of him thought back to her denial. Well, that may have been a bit presumptuous of him, but it certainly seemed to be the case now that they'd talked this much about what had happened. Anyway, he thought back to all of that and felt the familiar age-old urge to poke fun at her. And it was absolutely _relieving_ to experience that because, for all of their newly traversed territory, all of their fear or anxiety or discomfort, there was still something there to latch onto that was comparable to their base relationship.

And it was this acknowledgement more than just about anything that gave him the courage to be irrevocably honest with her.

"It's you, Myst. It was… it's definitely because it was you."

"Yeah, I did… you know, I did _that_ … because it was you too."

He'd already known this, of course, already figured it out before she'd been awake and brave enough to tell him herself, but it was nice hearing it from her anyway. Although, dense as he was about this particular matter, he certainly didn't mind the possibility of more clarity.

"So that means you love me or whatever, right?" And he tried to play it off so coolly that Misty wouldn't have even known that his soul fractured a bit at the use of such an intimate emotion, had his voice not also cracked a little as he used that word.

The redhead blinked, eyeing him from her position in bed, before falling straight back and instead counting the tiles in the ceiling, gracing him with an answer he hadn't even realized he'd been waiting so breathlessly to hear.

"Yeah."

It was strange how such a drastic shift in their dynamic had taken place and yet they were so calm about it. Of course, there wasn't much choice since they didn't want to accidentally exacerbate Misty's head injury, let alone they were both much too tired to act on any potential excitement.

Well, there was always _tomorrow_ …

And speaking of tomorrow, their stay at Cinnabar's emergency clinic went by without any problems and Misty was discharged next day with only a warning of caution towards any possible strenuous activity. Luckily, the ferry back to Pallet Town would last late into the afternoon and the redhead had a day or few before she was scheduled to head back to Cerulean so she could easily get some extra rest at the Ketchum residence before going.

Other than some mildly nerve wracking hand-holding, Ash and Misty hadn't much explored their new relationship at all, nor had they discussed the strain their long-distance from each other might put on it… but they would have time for that later. It was better just to enjoy it for now, wasn't it?

Or so they thought because, as they were boarding the boat back home, Misty missed a step and yelped as she fell forward. Ash turned, concerned that something really bad had happened (maybe she'd gotten dizzy, relapsed, maybe they shouldn't have tried to push her so soon), and she careened straight into him, leading them both to hit the ground hard.

Ash did his best to brace himself and flinched as he collapsed backwards and Misty landed halfway on top of him. Well, at least he'd broken _her_ fall…

They both groaned, blinking away their pain for a few seconds before checking on each other.

"You okay…?" the raven-haired Pokemon trainer asked, biting back another sharp burst of pain as it radiated up and down his back.

It wasn't until the redhead replied that he realized something was terribly, mortifyingly wrong here.

"Yeah," she mumbled, and he recoiled at the feeling of her breath on his groin, a faint vibration from her vocal cords causing him severe distress as it reverberated against his suddenly _very_ sensitive nether region.

Unfortunately, seeing as she was only just fresh out of the hospital and currently taking a little longer than average to collect herself, she hadn't noticed it yet.

"M - Myst… Misty…" he whispered, hyperventilating, fists clenching at his sides, internal struggle blazing as he began a battle to keep from thinking with the _wrong head_. He had to do everything he could to stave any - uh - _natural_ reaction his body was in the process of having, "You gotta get off of me. You gotta get off _right now_."

You know, or else she wasn't the only one who'd be _getting off_ in the end.

"Geez, okay, Mr. Pokemon Master; no need to be so rude," she started indignantly, misunderstanding his tone, "It was just an accident… a - after… all… _Oh_. Oh, god, sorry…!"

It was strange to think about how they seemed to be in the exact opposite situation that they'd been in roughly twenty-four hours ago.

Of course, the irony was the last thing on Ash's mind.

"Okay, I'm up, I'm up!" Misty yelped, clearing her throat and rebounding to her feet in what felt like less than a second.

"Y - yeah, thanks for that…" he croaked raspily, also struggling to stand so that they could both get fully on board the ferry without blocking traffic anymore, distracting himself by taking the following minute or so to dust himself off.

They were incapable of even looking each other in the eye at present and both of them couldn't help thinking it was going to be a _long_ ride home.

Yup, it was amazing how full circle they'd really come in just one day.

 **O** o **O** o **O**

 **Notes** \- kay, fanfic complete thanks to some assistance from a couple of friends on Tumblr, where I've been spending most of my days uselessly posting fics. This whole thing seems to be quite the dying art but I'm hoping to get back to uploading here too since FFN is a site built for reading long prose...

Anyway, please review, fave, all that! I would be so very grateful! And I'll be uploading something new either tomorrow or sometime over the weekend!


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